The high prevalence of chronic degenerative diseases requires the health professionals to be able to guide patients about risk factors, among them, eating. The paper presents the results of a research that aimed to identify difficulties in this approach. The research involved eight physicians and nine nurses. Action-research method was used. The method involves service rendered, systematic observation, semi-structured interviews and return of the researcher's elaborated theory to the subjects. The technique employed was qualitative, based on the sociology of knowledge. The difficulties identified were: lack of theorical basis to analyze eating problems, lack of criteria to identify them, lack of parameters to distinguish eating problems from economic problems, lack of technical knowledge to approach eating problems, consideration of eating problems as immutable facts, necessity of working with standardized diets, conflicts between theoretical knowledge and routine habits and lack of knowledge of the nutritionist's role. The conclusion reminds the necessity of endeavoring efforts to improve nutrition teaching in medical and nursing courses, to develop methods that will allow the students to question eating facts, to develop researches in nutrition education field by improvement of teaching methods and to elucidate health professionals about the nutritionist's role in patient's nutrition education, creating conditions to interdisciplinary work. Considering the primary role of nutrition in health promotion, maintenance and recovery, it is essential to develop adequate learning adressed to health professionals about these subjects.
nutrition; patient education; nutrition education; diet therapy
